Category Archives: Classroom pictures

We are ready for action! Finished my room today (or maybe it was tonight), and ready for the kids to start tomorrow! I hope we have a great year-lots of fun and learning planned! Here are the pictures of my room with short descriptions.

The picture on the left is the way we check out books from the classroom library. On the right are posters explaining what thick and thin questions are (and I love it when they can generate “thick” questions! 🙂

On the left are the drawers where I will keep lessons for things that we work on in small group. On the right is a picture of my reading table-you can see my desk behind it up against the wall. I have never had them situated like this-it saves a ton of room.

The picture on the left shows our “Fab Five” choices that we will do each week on a daily basis. (Otherwise known as The Daily 5). I also put up our Alabama Course of Study Standards that we are required to teach in 6th grade (with the pink border around it). On the right is our conference calendar where I will make appointments to meet with each child each week about their reading. This picture also has a Bloom’s Taxonomy chart-I will try to gear our lessons and questions based on this taxonomy of higher level thinking.

On the left is our whole class meeting area (of course I get to sit in one of these wonderfully comfortable chairs!!!). 🙂 Behind the chairs is our CAFE board. The red pocket chart will hold picture books that I will be using for mini-lessons and comprehension strategy think sheets that the students will be using with the books they read. On the right are my purple shelves that have “most” of the book bins that my kids will use to keep their books they are reading, reading notebooks, writing notebooks, and reading/writing binders. The green tubs on top have “easy” chapter books.

On the left: VOICES will be where we post our 6 trait writing mini lessons that are taught. Yellow and green trays will be where the kids turn in their Response to Reading notebooks. Pink, green, and blue mini-drawers hold our comprehension skill cards that we will work on during “Fab Five” each day. Green, blue, and red trays will hold our “fresh read” passages that the kids will practice reading each week for fluency and comprehension (with partners most of the time). White shelves have supplies that we use-stapler, tape, scissors, etc. Picture on right shows our “Behavior Boxes’ that we will hopefully NOT use often-discipline. On the bottom of the whiteboard is where I will write weekly objectives.

Picture on the left shows part of our classroom library(Love, love, love those green baskets). On the right are my crates that hold graded papers to go home each week and signed graded papers that have been returned.

On the left are picture books the kids will be able to read to meet their goal of 50 books this year. YES-50 books! 🙂 On the right is the rest of our classroom library. I LOVE TO READ!

Student computers-don’t get me started on this right now-they need a post of their own! 🙂 In other words, NOT REALLY WORKING RIGHT NOW!

On the left is our homeworkopoly board-kids can play on Friday if they have had their homework. 🙂 Picture on right shows our graffiti board where the kids can make book recommendations to each other and write favorite quotes. Data sheets will go inside the blue border-these will be compiled from our benchmark assessments each 6 weeks. Misc. stuff inside the pink border: absent student yellow folder, boxes to hold our seeds that we earn for whole class good behavior (20 seeds gets some kind of party!).

3 different views of my 20 x 22 small classroom. We will have 24 kids in one class and 25 in the other one. I have 2 rows of 12 with an extra desk at the end of one of the rows. Leaves more space around us. Maybe. 🙂

I am loving my room this year!

If you want to see more pictures of classrooms just click on this link over to TBA (Teaching Blog Addict)-you’ll find an entire classroom pictures PARTY!!!

I just finished my classroom door (YEA) and thought I would share with you. It is VERY simple this year! I will have about 48 6th graders (24 in each class) so I am just going to type up 2 class lists and put them on the wall beside the door.

When oh when will I be finished with my classroom? Not to mention all of the plans I want to get together or the forms I want to create or the copies I need to make or the thinking that still needs to be done about english mini-lessons, reading mini-lessons, writing mini-lessons, whole group teaching, small group reading instruction, individual conferring, lesson plan format, decorating classroom door, organizing classroom library, setting up reading and writing notebooks, bulletin boards, OH, YEAH I forgot-I still have a family! Maybe they’ll remember me in 3 weeks when I surface again! 🙂

So I went into my classroom this afternoon to do a few things (and actually did accomplish a little-nobody else was there was the only reason!). I took 4 pictures of the 4 things I accomplished today in 2 hours (holy moly-how am I ever gonna get finished???). 🙂

classroom library book checkout-each student has a library pocket with their number on it. They write their name on an index card and each time they check out a book they write the date and title. When they return it they draw a line through it. When they fill up a card (smile) they get a new one and staple to the old one (so they will have another record of what they read). This is a VERY simple system!! I’ve probably lost a few books, but it’s worth me not having to manage it. And I just thought of something-maybe I will make each student get another student to verify that they are checking it back in. Hmmm…..

parts of speech word wall-we will add interesting words and vocabulary words to this word wall throughout the year

cafe board-YEA!!!! It’s finished!!!!!!!!!!!

fab five board-this is my version of the Daily 5-we won’t have enough time each day to do 5 things, and I wasn’t really sure about any daily thing so my 6th graders will have to do these by the end of the week with read to self EVERY DAY.

Now I know you are wondering if I like color in my classroom!??!!? I LOVE BRIGHT COLORS. I never do a theme like some teachers because my theme is Color Me Bright! 🙂

What have you gotten ready in your classroom? Are you finished? Well, if you are-I don’t want to hear about it! 🙂

I worked in my classroom ALL day-well, I did take a lunch break, oh and I did a 30minute exercise video with my best friend(she teaches 4th), and I took a yogurt snack break! BUT, I really did work in my classroom all day! 🙂

Mostly, I just dragged stuff out-I ALWAYS make a bigger mess before I get it together! My daughter came and hooked up my printer for me(of course, then I realized it was out of ink-just my luck!). She also took ALL of my Scott Foresman Reading Street leveled readers and organized them into my plastic sterlite drawers. She didn’t even complain while doing it-she wanted to go somewhere-you know how 17 year old are! 🙂

I took 2 pictures to post-I will write a short description for each one:

Yellow, purple, orange, and green strips-this is where my CAFE board will be

Yellow border-this is my conference calendar for CAFE

Blue border- this will be my focus objectives for week

Green border-this will be my Daily 5 choice signs

Pink border-I am going to type up all of our AL COS standards and post them here-I am planning on highlighting each one as I teach it(sort of keep myself accountable!)

Orange paper-This will be our graffiti board (I have never done this)-the kids can write short book recommendations to each other as well as favorite lines from books(I think they will LOVE this!)

Blue border- I am going to have a data wall-Each 6 weeks they will take a benchmark assessment test-I will post it on our data wall(by numbers not names) and let them write a short note about what their reading goal will be for the next 6 weeks

Pink border- The yellow folder is where I will put work for kids who were absent; The 2 ziploc bags are my positive behavior stuff; the blank space is where I am going to put my vision/mission statement for our classroom as well as 1 or 2 of my favorite quotes

I will do a FULL post when I get my room completely ready (hopefully before school starts :))!

About Me

I teach 6th grade reading/language arts, and we currently use the Scott Foresman Reading Street series. Teaching is my passion!!! I am hoping to create lots of resources that can be used to supplement this reading series. Please be patient.